Note.—­The weirs are set
one or two days after the ice moves
out. Occasionally they are
put in place before the ice leaves.

Apparatus and methods of the fishery.

There is probably no other river in the United States
in which a fishery of such magnitude has undergone
so few changes with respect to methods, number of
traps operated, and sites where nets are set, as the
Penobscot. This is chiefly owing (1) to the character
of the bottom, (2) to the fact that the fishing is
a riparian privilege enjoyed only by those who own
land fronting on the water, (3) to the circumstance
that the fishing is almost entirely of a semi-professional
character, and has been taken up by generation after
generation as a part of the regular duties connected
with the small farms, and (4) to the small number
of food-fishes occurring in the river, and the preponderating
importance of two of them—­the salmon and
the alewife—­for which the nets are exclusively
set.